


Doubt

by lizandletdie



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, Post-Season 4 AU, Pregnancy, implied scarlet beauty, what is WRONG with me?, why can't i resist these things?, why do i write so many baby fics?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-17
Updated: 2015-03-17
Packaged: 2018-03-18 07:11:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3560789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizandletdie/pseuds/lizandletdie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rumplestiltskin isn’t sure he wants to know who the father of her child is, until he can’t not know anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Doubt

**Author's Note:**

> This was an anon prompt:  
> I have a prompt and I don't know who to send it to. My first choice is you, but I know you have tons on your plate fic-wise. If you don't want it, I trust you'll find it a good home: When Rumple and Belle get back together, she finds out she's pregnant. Rumple anguishes over not being sure it's his, but he's too scared to ask. What if the answer breaks his heart? What if Belle is angry at him for even asking? Cue Rumple panic, comforting, and a sweet resolution.
> 
> I hate that I have to do this, but apparently I do. If you're reading this fic anywhere besides AO3, it was posted without my consent and likely profited someone else. Please consider [donating](https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_donations&business=CZNGXGNP4PRX4&lc=US&item_name=The%20Mantis%20Fund&currency_code=USD&bn=PP%2dDonationsBF%3abtn_donate_SM%2egif%3aNonHosted) or swinging by my Tumblr (standbyyourmantis) to let me know what you thought!

There were some things Rumpelstiltskin didn't want answers to. Since his reconciliation with Belle, he tried not to ask her questions about her life while he'd been gone. He knew enough to know he didn't want to know more. He didn't want to know, for example, if she'd dated anyone else in town besides Will Scarlet. He didn't want to know how she'd become so friendly with the pirate. He didn't want to know if she'd missed him as much as he had missed her, or if she'd thought about him before she went to sleep at night. He couldn't couldn't be sure of the answers, and he wasn't really sure if either one would make him feel better.

He had Belle back now, and that was what mattered. Regardless of what had happened while they had been apart, they were together now and nothing else mattered.

It was only a few short weeks later, though, that reality came crashing in on him.

Belle was sick. She was in and out of the bathroom constantly and couldn't keep a thing down. He’d been staying home with her, at her beck and call with tea and toast as she lay on the floor of the bathroom for hours a day. By the third or fourth day of this, he was getting worried. By the fifth day, it was time to call for a doctor.

It took some convincing, with Belle insisting that aside from the constant vomiting she felt fine, but another wave of nausea had her finally agreeing to get into the car for a trip to the hospital.

Dr. Whale only needed a little threatening before he had Belle ushered into his office, leaving a very anxious Rumpelstiltskin to flip through painfully old magazines in the waiting room before a nurse summoned him to the back.

When he reached the exam room, Belle was sitting quietly on an exam table with a nervous look on her face and Whale was writing something on a prescription pad.

“Oh, there you are,” he said as Rumpelstiltskin walked in. “I was just telling your wife that it sounds like it’s just a bad case of morning sickness.”

Belle looked over at him with a strangely apologetic look on her face as his entire world shifted. Morning sickness meant pregnancy. Pregnancy meant a baby. Belle was having a baby. They were having a baby. He was going to be a father again. And then, the world came crashing down around him. He had been gone for a very long time. There were six weeks of time he knew very little about, except that she had been dating someone else. He didn’t know how far that had gone, or when it had started. And now Belle was pregnant.

“I’m giving her a prescription for something that should help with the nausea,” Whale continued, apparently unaware of the fact that Rumpelstiltskin’s heart had stopped working. “If that doesn’t help, we can do some other tests, but otherwise I’d like to see you in a couple weeks for your next appointment.”

Belle began to climb off the table, and Rumpelstiltskin reached out to help her down purely from muscle memory, as his brain had apparently stopped working. He watched as Belle took the paper with her prescription on it from the doctor and escorted her to the receptionist desk. He watched as she made her next appointment, although he couldn’t understand any of the words. Belle was pregnant, and he couldn’t decide how he felt about that.

It wasn’t until the globe Cora had gave him successfully located Bae that he knew for the first time that Baelfire had been his and he’d still loved his son more than anything. By the end, Milah couldn’t stand the sight of him, but Bae had still been his. He loved Belle more than he’d loved another person besides his son and he would love her no matter what. He could love her child regardless of its biological parentage, he reassured himself. He’d never hate her for this, and he could love the child.

Will Scarlet had been returned to Wonderland, so it was doubtful he’d ever be involved in the baby’s life even if it was his. Rumpelstiltskin would be the one to raise it, and to be there when it was born. There was no reason to ever even think about it again, was there?

By the time her prescription had been filled at the hospital pharmacy and they were in his car, he’d managed to convince himself that it didn’t matter one way or the other. They hadn’t said a damn thing to each other since leaving the office, and he wasn’t entirely sure that they’d even paid the damn pharmacist. She was resting her hands on her tummy now, and looking down with a confused look on her face.

Without giving himself time to second guess, he reached out and took her hand in his.

“Hey,” he said when she looked up at him. “It’s going to be okay. We’re in it together.”

She smiled at him and he could see some of the worry begin to evaporate, though not all of it.

“I know,” she replied, flashing him a little smile. “I’m just...I had no idea. This is all so sudden.”

“Well,” he managed to choke out. “Let’s get you home. We still have plenty of time to prepare.”

“We do,” she said. “He says about six more months judging from my morning sickness and my last period.”

Six months. Six months was good. Six months meant she had conceived around the time he was banished. He was still in the running to be the father, anyway. That could be good enough, because it had to be good enough. So he didn’t push her further, instead he took her home.

 

The months began to tick by, and her morning sickness did indeed clear up. She was becoming rounder and crankier, but somehow even more beautiful. They decided not to find out the gender, so the nursery was done in pale yellows and bumblebees. He’d thrown himself into doing whatever she asked. When she had to have a particular flavor of ice cream one night, he’d driven all over town (and woken up a few shop owners) to get it for her. When she couldn’t stop crying because the buttery yellow nursery paint was supposed to be more like daffodil, he’d had it repainted. When her ankles were swollen, he pulled her feet into his lap.

There was nothing he wouldn’t (and didn’t) do for her, and that worked to a degree. It kept his mind off of other things, like the paternity of her child. Their child, dammit. He had to just keep saying it until it felt true. The baby was theirs, and he would be there every step of the way. There could be other children later, maybe. Children who he would know about, children that would be planned. Although not too many children, because he wasn’t as young as he once was. And perhaps no more than this one after all. But he didn’t need a biological child, he just needed Belle and this baby and he could be happy. He had to be happy.

Will Scarlet shared his coloring -- light skin, tawny hair, and brown eyes. He’d never know, and he didn’t need to know. Why should he know? Why should it make any difference? He loved Belle, and he would love her baby. He would love their baby -- he already loved their baby. In the grand scheme of all the lies he had told her in their marriage, what difference did it possibly make if he told himself this little last one?

The baby started kicking around five months, and he was there for that, too. With his hand on her belly and a smile on his face. She was so beautiful when she was happy, and the kicking made her happy. Her hormones kicked in around then, too, and she couldn’t stop wanting him. She couldn’t sleep now without at least one orgasm beforehand, and the more that she had the better she slept. He was exhausted, and happy, and it didn’t matter because she was glowing and he was so damn in love with her that sometimes it felt like his heart might explode.

It really didn’t matter anymore who the father of the baby was, because it would be his in every way that could possibly matter. He had committed arson and treason and murder and taken on a curse for the love of Bae, all without knowing the truth of his parentage. This baby would be just as beautiful and just as easy to love and he would do that. He would love it and love its mother and keep them both safe and happy and they would live happily ever after.

Because he needed for those things to all be true, dammit. He didn’t need to have it be his child, he just needed to love it, and that would be enough.

 

Sometime around the seventh month, he was laying next to her, panting and sated. She was so beautiful, and he loved her so much.

“You know,” she said. “I missed this while you were gone.”

While he was gone was a nebulous time for both of them, a secret kept for themselves by mutual agreement. They’d never spoken of it, until apparently right now.

“I did too,” he replied, brushing some hair back from her face. “Though mostly I missed seeing you every day.”

“I missed that too,” she admitted. “I was angry with you, of course, but I missed you so much. But that’s not what I meant.”

“No?”

“I missed this,” she said, cuddling into him. “The touching. And kissing, and...sex.”

He could almost hear her blushing and he loved that she was still so shy even now.

“I’m here now,” he reassured her. “And I’ll be here forever. For both of you.”

“That’s good,” she cooed, raising herself up to kiss his neck and shoulders and obviously very ready for round two. “I don’t want to ever not have you here again.”

And suddenly, he couldn’t do it anymore.

“Sweetheart?” he murmured, rubbing her shoulders gently. “Was there...anyone else? While I was gone, I mean?”

That was almost as effective as dropping a bucket of water on her.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…” he couldn’t say it, she was going to hate him for even thinking it. “Never mind. It’s nothing.”

“No,” she said, looking concerned all of a sudden. “What are you asking?”

“Did you sleep with anyone else while I was gone?”

“Are you asking me if this is your baby?”

Trust Belle to cut straight to the truth of the matter. He couldn’t bear to answer her, but then his silence answered for him, didn’t it?

“Rumple,” she had her hand on his chin and was turning him to face her. “I was raised as a lady. Do you really think I was out trolling for dates while you were gone?”

“You kissed him,” he whispered.

“But nothing else,” she promised. “It’s your baby. I didn’t know, but I was starting to suspect while you were gone. It’s the only way the math all lines up. If you want we can do a paternity test, but…”

She didn’t get to finish, because he couldn’t help but kiss her at that.

“I don’t,” he promised, holding her as close as he could as the tears started to fill his eyes. “I trust you and I’d have been there for you both regardless. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have doubted.”

“I can’t believe you did the last four months worried this wasn’t your child,” she said. “Why didn’t you just ask?”

“I didn’t want you to think I’d doubted you,” he replied. “It wouldn’t have made any difference, I just wanted to know.”

“Well,” she said, kissing the tears from his eyes. “Now you know. And you have my word that this baby is yours.”

He couldn’t come up with any response better than to roll her onto her back and begin kissing his way down her body. She was his family, and he would never doubt her again.

 


End file.
